Local News

The school board’s “back is against the wall,” board vice president Scott Brown said, as it deliberates between two unpopular and difficult choices to sustain district services: raise taxes or cut program spending.
“You can’t make something out of nothing,” Brown said as the school board debated during a work session on tax rates held last Thursday night. “We’ve got to get money somewhere.”

Abigail Wilson, 12, burst into tears when she arrived at the only church she’s ever known last Thursday morning.
“I’ve been coming here since I was 6 months old,” the Anderson County Middle School student said while joining other members of Mt. Pleasant Baptist in the church’s parking lot. “I had never seen anything like that. It just made me cry.”

The message carved into a sign on Rick and Lorraine Coffman’s front porch reads: “The best thing to hold on to in life is each other.”
That’s about all the couple has left after a devastating flash flood late last Wednesday night left their home at the corner of Puncheon Creek Road and Highway 53 in ruins.
“The inspector said the best bet is to take a bulldozer to it,” said Lorraine, who battled back tears Saturday morning from her front porch as she looked across her front yard at the creek that destroyed her home.

Geneva Washington, now Geneva Howard, made history 50 years ago when she walked through the doors of Anderson High on the first day of school.
“At the time, I didn’t think about it,” Howard, one of the first black students to attend Anderson High School. “At the time, I knew it was something we had to do.”
Howard was one of about 16 African-American students from Lawrenceburg who attended the high school in the fall of 1963, the first year the school was integrated.

Evidence “omitted purposefully” and conflicting testimony from two City of Lawrenceburg police officers resulted in the dismissal of drug trafficking charges against a Lawrenceburg man Monday in Anderson Circuit Court.
“I’m deeply concerned that critical information, really exculpatory information in favor of the defendant, was omitted purposely by the police department,” Circuit Court Judge Charles Hickman said moments before dismissing cocaine trafficking charges against Shanta Bixler, 31, of 505 East Woodford St.

The company proposing to build the Bluegrass Pipeline through Anderson County confirmed Monday that it thinks it already has, and is prepared to use, the power of eminent domain to get it built.
Just days after the Anderson County Fiscal Court unanimously approved a resolution to keep the controversial pipeline out of Anderson County, company officials responded to questions from The Anderson News that included residents’ concerns about questionable tactics used by agents attempting to secure permission to survey their property.

A 68-year-old Lawrenceburg man is charged with punching and threatening to kill a police officer along with making a lewd statement to an emergency medical technician.
David Alan Kays of 1049 David St. was arrested Aug. 6 on charges that include assaulting a police officer, terroristic threatening, resisting arrest and harassment after Lawrenceburg police entered his home to serve him with a bench warrant for failing to pay a fine.

A flash flood late Wednesday night left one home destroyed and caused significant damage to a church and other homes in the Puncheon Creek area.

Puncheon Creek, which runs along Highway 53 in western Anderson County about 15 miles from Lawrenceburg, roared at least 6 to 8 feet over its banks when an estimated 5 inches of rain fell in about one hour.

The creek swelled over the top of Highway 53, washing out the foundation of a home at the corner of Puncheon Creek Road and trapping a woman who ended up screaming for help from a second-floor window.